The School Record

Hartland High School

Secondary school · Reading

125 Hartland Road, Reading, RG2 8AF

This school was given a new school number on 1 January 2025. Before that it was John Madejski Academy (URN 130247).

Ofsted category of concern: Serious weaknesses

At its inspection on 10 October 2023 (Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework)), this school was placed in the category serious weaknesses.

Ofsted judged that one or more key areas of the school's performance needed significant improvement, while leaders had the capacity to improve. This category was later renamed “requires significant improvement”.

This is about that one inspection. Schools do come out of these categories. This page does not tell you where the school stands today. Check that with Ofsted.

About the school

Type of school
Academy
Academy trust
Greenshaw Learning Trust
New school number
From 1 January 2025. Before that it was John Madejski Academy (URN 130247).
Ages
11 to 18
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Sixth form
Yes
School number (URN)
151631

Other schools run by Greenshaw Learning Trust

Greenshaw Learning Trust runs 34 other schools with a page here. These are the 10 nearest.

From Get Information about Schools, retrieved 2 September 2026. Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.

How big the school is

In 2024 this school had 1,100 places and 702 children on roll.

398 places were unfilled, which is 36% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 759 children on roll on average, against 702 in 2024. Some of those years are from its record under an earlier school number.

Places are the whole school added up, every year group together. That is not the number of places a school offers to new children in one year.

Source: Department for Education school capacity collection.

Children in each year group

As counted on one day in January 2026, the most recent school census. These are children, not places.

Children in each year group at Hartland High School

Y7 75, Y8 95, Y9 148, Y10 114, Y11 108, Y12 16, Y13 3375Y795Y8148Y9114Y10108Y1116Y1233Y13
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Year 7 75
Year 8 95
Year 9 148
Year 10 114
Year 11 108
Year 12 16
Year 13 33

This is not a list of spare places. Places per year group are not published, and the count is from January. Children join and leave all year, so a year group that looked two under in January can be full by March.

If you are moving into the area and need a place during the school year, ask Reading. Councils handle applications made during the school year, including for schools that set their own admission rules. They hold the up-to-date position, which this page does not.

Who decides who gets a place

This school sets its own admission rules, through its academy trust, rather than Reading setting them.

Look on the school's own website for its admission arrangements. An admission authority has to agree its rules every year and publish them. The council still takes the application.

Taken from the kind of school this is, as recorded by the Department for Education. We do not hold this school's rules themselves: a summary of an admission rule is not the rule, and only the admission authority's own published arrangements are binding.

How to apply

Applications for a place starting in September 2027 closed on 31 October 2026, unless your council set a later date.

That is a Saturday, and some councils accept applications until the next working day. Your council's website gives its own closing date.

Councils send every offer for secondary school places on the same day, 1 March 2027 or the next working day.

An application made after the closing date is what the rules call a late application. It is still a normal application and the council still handles it, but it is dealt with after the ones that arrived on time, so it does not get an answer on the day above.

You apply through the council where you live, even for a school in another area. You do not apply to the school. Find your council's secondary school application on GOV.UK.

Links and dates can change. Your council's own website has the final word. The dates are set nationally by the School Admissions Code 2021. GOV.UK link checked 23 September 2026. Contact details from Get Information about Schools.

How many families applied

Preferences expressed and offers made at Year 7, as published by the Department for Education. These describe demand, not whether a particular child would be offered a place.

In the 2026 intake, 46 families named Hartland High School as their first preference, and the school made 86 offers.

That is 0.53 first preferences per place offered, higher than 6% of schools admitting at Year 7 in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 6% of comparable schools
Position among schools in England admitting at Year 7, 2026 intake.

First preferences for this school fell 44%, from 95 a year in 2022–2023 to 53 in 2025–2026. Across all 10 schools in Reading admitting at Year 7, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 1,796 to 1,766. The school also offered fewer places over these years, 170 a year in 2022–2023 and 88 in 2025–2026, which is why the figure per place can move the other way from the count of families.

Counts of families, not places.

Across Reading as a whole, 73.1% of families applying for a secondary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 93.3% were offered one of the three schools they named. That is a figure for the council, not for this school. How the 2026 round went in Reading.

Compared with its own past

Fewer families than its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 46 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 78 a year.

In 2026, 107 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 152 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (46 of 46). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 0 of the 86 offers went to children living outside Reading. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 7 a year.

Some of the earlier years are for John Madejski Academy, the school this one replaced.

Each figure is compared only with the same figure at this school. "About the same" means within 10 in every 100 of the average.

First preferences and offers at Year 7

Families naming Hartland High School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 105 in 2014 to 46 in 2026; Offers made from 149 in 2014 to 86 in 202601002002014201620182020202220242026Offers made86First preferences46
Source: Department for Education, school-level applications and offers. Preferences count families. Offers count places given out on offer day. The vertical axis does not start at zero.

Figures before 2025 are from John Madejski Academy, the school this one replaced, before it was given its current school number. The government's school register links the two, and they are the same school.

Applications and offers at Year 7, 13 intake years
Intake 1st preferences1st choice All preferencesAny choice Offers madeOffers 1st prefs per placePer place
2026 46 107 86 0.53
2025 60 117 89 0.67
2024
as John Madejski Academy		 84 162 155 0.54
2023
as John Madejski Academy		 113 193 176 0.64
2022
as John Madejski Academy		 77 153 164 0.47
2021
as John Madejski Academy		 57 134 146 0.39
2020
as John Madejski Academy		 64 125 124 0.52
2019
as John Madejski Academy		 75 140 179 0.42
2018
as John Madejski Academy		 60 119 145 0.41
2017
as John Madejski Academy		 64 117 85 0.75
2016
as John Madejski Academy		 86 198 97 0.89
2015
as John Madejski Academy		 136 231 166 0.82
2014
as John Madejski Academy		 105 203 149 0.70

“Offers made” is the number of offers on offer day, not the number of places the school has.

Source: Department for Education: school-level applications and offers, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

Where families put this school on their list

In 2026 this school made 86 offers: 46 to families who had named it first and 4 to families who named it second.

36 offers went to families who named it fourth or lower, or who were admitted another way.

A school is not allowed to treat a family differently because of where it sat on their list. The School Admissions Code says an admission authority must not give extra priority to children whose parents rank preferred schools in a particular order.

The order is used at the end, by the council, and not by the school. Where more than one school could take a child, the council offers the one the family put highest.

Leaving the other boxes empty does not change how this school considers an application. If none of the schools a family names can offer a place, the council has to offer one at a school that has room, and that school may be further away.

Source: Department for Education school level applications and offers, and the School Admissions Code 2021, paragraphs 1.9 and 2.11.

Ofsted

Ofsted changed its inspection framework: the current one publishes several graded areas and no single overall grade, while the previous one published an overall effectiveness grade. Each inspection below states which framework produced it.

Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 10 October 2023

This inspection relates to a predecessor of the current school.

Category of concern: Serious weaknesses

Overall effectiveness
Inadequate
Quality of education
Inadequate
Behaviour and attitudes
Inadequate
Personal development
Requires improvement
Leadership and management
Good
Sixth form / post-16
Good

Ofsted's report for this school

Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

If you are refused a place

In 2026, families in Reading lodged 58 appeals about a secondary school place.

49 of them were heard by a panel and 6 succeeded, which is about 12 in every 100 heard.

The other 9 did not reach a panel. Most appeals that do not are withdrawn because a place comes up first.

This is a record of decisions already made. A panel hears one case at a time and decides it on what that family sets out, so these figures do not indicate what would happen in any particular appeal.

These count appeals about every school in Reading, not this school. Nobody publishes appeal figures school by school.

Source: Department for Education, admission appeals in England, reporting year 2026.

Waiting lists

Being refused a place does not end the application. Every admission authority has to keep a waiting list until at least 31 December of the school year the child would have started, and some keep them for longer.

A waiting list is not a queue. The rules say a child cannot be given priority for having joined it earlier, or for having applied earlier. The list is put back in order against the school's own admission rules every time a child is added, so a place can move further away as well as nearer.

Councils differ on whether a refused child goes onto the list automatically. The council that sent the refusal is the only place that can say which it does.

From the School Admissions Code 2021, paragraph 2.15.

Children with special educational needs

In January 2026, 29 of the 589 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 5 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 103 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 18 in every 100, against a middle figure of 15 in every 100 across England.

A school named in a child's education, health and care plan has to admit that child. That duty holds even when the school is full, and it sits outside the rules that decide who gets a place when there are more children than places. Which school is named is decided with the council while the plan is being written, not through the normal application.

Source: Department for Education, special educational needs in England, January 2026 census.

Who goes to this school

In January 2026, 251 of the 589 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 43 in every 100.

More children are eligible here than at half of secondary schools in England, where the middle figure is 27 in every 100.

English was not the first language for 23 in every 100 children here. Across secondary schools the middle figure is 12 in every 100.

This describes the children who go to this school. It is not a measure of the school. Most children go to a school near home, so it is mostly a fact about the streets around it.

This matters when reading results. Across the 3,610 schools we hold 2024 key stage 4 results for, the fifth with the fewest eligible children averaged 81% getting grade 4 or above in English and maths. The fifth with the most averaged 35%.

Those are averages of many schools all over the country. This school's own results are further down this page exactly as published.

Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026. Free school meal eligibility is counted for every pupil on roll.

Exam results

Published by the Department for Education for the whole year group. Figures for smaller cohorts are withheld by DfE to protect pupil privacy and appear here as a dash, not a zero.

Key stage 4 (GCSE)
YearAttainment 8Progress 8 Grade 4+ English & mathsEBacc grade 4+
2024/25 - - - -

Progress 8 compares pupils here with pupils nationally who had similar results at the end of primary school; 0 is average. It is an estimate, and DfE publishes a range it is likely to fall within. Where that range spans zero, the school cannot be said to be above or below average.

Catchment area

Nobody publishes a catchment area map for this school that we can read. That does not mean an address is outside its area. It means we hold no map, so we cannot tell you either way.

Where it is, and schools nearby

The 6 nearest secondary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Hartland High School.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

Using this information

This is information only, not advice. It may have mistakes in it, or be out of date. Check with the school and the council before you decide anything. We collect these figures from official publications and check them, but mistakes can get through. If you find one, tell us.

Figures current as of 14 September 2026.

This page was updated on 5 November 2026. "Retrieved" is the date of our copy of each source, not the year its figures describe. How we compare schools.